"A Russian satellite crash landed in a field south west of Moscow earlier this month while carrying some unusual cargo: about 1,500 flies, 75 mice, seeds, a bunch of microbes, and various cell tissues. The Bion-M No 2 satellite's mission was to study the impact of space on these critters, but to also test the wild concept - a theory called panspermia - that life came to Earth via microorganisms hitching a ride on a comet, meteor or asteroid."
"To test the panspermia theory, scientists had inserted strains of bacterial microbes into basalt rocks and embedded them into the spacecraft's shell, in order to see whether the microorganisms would be able to survive the fiery descent back to Earth,according to Russian officials in a Telegram post. The flight was a collaborative project by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP)."
A Russian orbital biology mission returned with specimens including about 1,500 flies, 75 mice, seeds, microbial strains, and various cell tissues after a crash landing southwest of Moscow. Bion-M No 2 combined physiological studies of organisms in orbit with an experimental test of panspermia by embedding bacterial strains inside basalt in the spacecraft shell to assess survival during fiery reentry. The flight was a collaboration between Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems. Scientists will inspect singed hardware and recovered samples to determine whether any microbes survived deep-space radiation and descent, which would support lithopanspermia. The satellite orbited for 30 days in a region with higher-than-ISS cosmic radiation levels.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]